New Shun 1730

India, Pondicherry occupied by France.

A beautiful warship stayed at the port, and the other ships accompanying it were busy loading supplies, waiting for the monsoon season to arrive, and they were about to go to China.

Along the way were ports of Britain or the Netherlands with which they had very bad relations, and there was no chance of replenishment after leaving Pondicherry.

Fortunately, the merchant ships of the East India Company would guide the diplomatic fleet of this group of French envoys to Guangdong, and then go north to Weihai.

This time, the French delegation was extremely gorgeous, and the envoy was the Count Maurepas, who was highly valued.

In the future, he would be the regent and chief minister of the Louis XVI era, and the "prime minister" during the economic reform period that triggered the French Revolution.

However, at this time, Count Maurepas was still very young, but he had already held a high position.

At the age of 34, he was already the French Minister of the Navy, in charge of naval, trade and colonial affairs.

This time, since China sent the Duke to Paris, the King of France must also send a sufficient number of important officials to show equal respect.

The ship carried a variety of gifts, including French luxury goods and a large number of equipment.

This was the suggestion of the great colonial leader Dupleix.

He believed that China did not lack any luxury goods, and France did not have any luxury goods that could impress the Chinese emperor, so it would be better to buy some tools and equipment.

The young Dupleix was not yet the governor-general of India, or the person in charge.

The current head of the East India Company is the very cautious Dumas. The French do not want to have a conflict with Britain here, let alone a war.

Duke Price's idea was too radical. This time the envoys to Dashun also brought the warning of Cardinal Fleury: Do not continue to expand in India, so as not to affect the interests of Britain.

Dupleix was quite disapproving of this, thinking that his superiors were a group of cowards.

In his opinion, France's interests in India are not trade at all, but should invest more resources to seize India and collect taxes.

If the French are not enough, they can train local Indians as soldiers to solve the problem of long-distance transportation.

Moreover, the military factories in China can also produce cannons and rifles. It must be said that the 1728 rifles they imitated are quite good and not expensive.

If necessary, they can buy enough arms from China to arm Indian soldiers, seize land and collect taxes while the Mughal warlords are fighting each other, instead of relying on trade.

As for trade... After the Mississippi bubble burst, many nobles went bankrupt, and paper money without reserves filled the hole in the French treasury, but it also made many people involved in this scam.

People no longer believe in overseas trade as fanatically as before, and it is a disaster for the East India Company.

After the bubble burst, France's consumption capacity for silk, porcelain, etc. is extremely poor.

Colbert's extreme trade protectionism policy before made the Netherlands and Britain impose heavy tariffs on French products, and exports were sluggish. The sales of luxury goods of the East India Company in China were not good.

All this gave Dupleix a bold idea: Why not conquer India and make a profit by collecting taxes in India?

This time, Count Maurepas went to Dashun as a special envoy of the King of France. Dupleix was familiar with Chinese affairs and had gained a reputation for 125% profit from presiding over Guangdong trade. In addition, he was the one who had contacted Liu Yu before, so it was natural that he would accompany him now.

Taking this opportunity, Dupleix could talk to Count Maurepas about his ideas. In his opinion, Count Maurepas should support his ideas.

Moreover, his idea for India had an important premise, that is, the French navy was strong enough to ensure that the navy could support India instead of being stuck in Europe by the British.

To boost the navy, Count Maurepas, as the Minister of the Navy at this time, was a suitable adviser.

"My Lord, I have gained a lot of experience in dealing with the Chinese. One of them is that the generals of the previous dynasty of China, the Ming Empire, were controlled by civil officials, so they perished."

"And our French navy is taking this path. The dispute between the Feather Party and the Sabre Party has seriously weakened the power of the navy. Without a strong enough navy, there will be no trade."

The Feather Party refers to civil officials.

The Sabre Party is the French saber nobles, and is also an important part of the navy's officers. After the Revolution, a wave of nobles were purged, and the combat effectiveness of the French navy dropped sharply, but there is a big problem with the combat effectiveness of the French navy now.

The centralized policy of the Louis XIV era, the praise of the Chinese system by some missionaries, and the policy of civil officials taking power to weaken the nobles, which is necessary for centralization, have all made the French naval reform present a strange "Ming army after Tumu Fort" state.

In Colbert's naval reform, a very important one is that the civil officials are in charge of the army.

Richelieu hoped to enhance centralization. The political system that Richelieu dreamed of was the civil government of the Eastern Empire, weakening the power of the nobility and strengthening the power of the civil servants.

In the era of Richelieu, in the French Navy, the civil servants controlled promotion, logistics, supplies, and military pay. The military officers were responsible for combat.

Colbert's reforms followed the trend of Richelieu and went a step further.

The civilian director not only retains all administrative power and military finance, but also has the power to supervise the military, military legal power, and most importantly: at the beginning of the war, the civilian director has the final decision-making power on the fleet's strategy and tactics, and civilian control.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that the navy is a technical branch, and civilian officials with no experience in naval warfare have too much control, which seriously weakens the navy's combat effectiveness.

Even later, France realized this problem and took back the strategic battle decision-making power of civilian officials, leaving it to a war committee composed of military generals.

However, it is easy to delegate power but difficult to take it back. Civil servants have already obtained many powers such as port affairs and administration.

It’s hard to get back.

Since then, the feud between the Feathers and the Sabers has never stopped.

They were quarreling all day long, and no one was convinced by the other. The contradiction between the two sides deepened, making the navy timid in combat.

Of course, this kind of centralized reform also has great benefits.

Under the civilian system, France's shipbuilding industry was formalized, and various shipyards under bureaucratic control gave France many advantages in warship design and warship assembly.

As well as Kolbet's overly advanced concept of "standardization", the French Navy's warship assembly speed is the fastest in Europe. It can even assemble standard warships with some standard parts. It is said that a standard cruise ship can be assembled within a few days. ship.

However, the battle between civilian officials and generals has made the French Navy's combat effectiveness very confusing. At least in Dupleix's view, this naval system with excessive civilian control and excessive responsibilities is simply impossible to defeat the British Navy.

The Army may be able to do this, but as the Navy is a technical branch, it is too restrictive for a group of civilian officials who do not understand navigation to fully govern the Navy.

For this reason, France took a different path with the Dashun military reform at this time: opening a naval military academy, using military cadets as the middle force, maintaining civilian control while still having good combat effectiveness.

A retirement system is adopted for sailors. Sailors can receive one-third of their salary after being discharged from the army, but they may be drafted onto the ship at any time and receive full military pay after boarding the ship.

Adopt a military rank system and so on.

The problem is that Dashun's army has no rivals nearby.

Therefore, after such a military reform, even if someone gives random orders, the advantage of the officers and students will still keep crushing the surrounding areas.

As for the French navy...it may not be able to defeat the British even if it fights tooth and nail, and it is even more futile if it is restrained by civil servants who do not understand navigation and naval warfare.

This was the first time Count Morpa had heard about the Ming Empire's civil servants restraining military generals, but he knew that the problem Dupleix mentioned did exist.

As Minister of the Navy, he hoped to revitalize the French navy, at least to maintain a balance of power against Britain and the Netherlands.

And as a hereditary nobleman, one can imagine his attitude towards civil servants' moderation.

But this matter is too difficult. Now he is more concerned about whether Dashun's development of the navy will affect France's interests.

"Mr. Dupleix, based on your understanding of China, isn't the navy they are training now under civilian control?"

Dupleix shook his head.

"The emerging navy will not develop if it is shackled too early. Perhaps, one day in the future, their navy will also be shackled, but not now. Their earl is handling this matter with full authority, although China does not have a naval minister, but it may be assumed that the count we are about to meet in Weihai is the naval minister of the Shun Empire. "

Count Morpa asked: "Are you not worried at all about the naval construction of the Shun Empire?"

"Yes. It may take another hundred years for the Shun Empire's navy to catch up with us. And they still have many potential enemies in the South China Sea. I think when their navy is built, the enemies they choose will be Netherlands."

"Your Majesty, as you can tell from the envoys from the Empire, they hope to make France an ally. For Russia, they are just demarcating the border."

"Moreover, even if we don't sell warships, the British, Dutch, and Spanish may sell them. This Eastern empire is too rich."

At least at this time, these colonial leaders could only express envy for China's wealth, but did not dare to have any unrealistic ideas.

Even if the Mughal Empire had not collapsed, Dupleix would not have had all kinds of bold ideas.

Count Morpa agreed with Dupleix's judgment. In fact, this friendly alliance with Dashun was also a rare unanimous attitude of the French court.

In the Polish Succession War that broke out not long ago, the French peace faction and the war faction had been fighting openly and secretly for a long time.

Cardinal Fulers, who was in power, had always hoped to mediate relations with Austria and maintain peace on the European continent as much as possible, thereby isolating Britain.

Regarding the issue of the Polish throne this time, Foles did not advocate war. However, the king received the support of the militant faction and advocated for the rights of his father-in-law.

The war completely ruined the cardinal's idea of ​​​​improving relations with Austria.

The only thing the cardinal could do was to actively mediate to ensure that the French war would only take place in Germany and Italy, and to ensure that the interests of the Netherlands and Britain would not be touched, so as to prevent the UK and the Netherlands from being involved in this war.

Britain and the Netherlands, whose vitality was severely damaged by the South China Sea Bubble, did not want to be involved in this war, and the two sides hit it off. The French army was very "cowardly" and did not dare to "surprise" the Dutch allies.

But in Asia, when the Dashun envoys arrived in Paris and Dupleix delivered Liu Yu's letter, the French court was still very positive about this diplomacy.

Both the war faction and the peace faction showed great interest in this diplomatic invitation from a foreign country thousands of miles away.

After all, it was the most gorgeous emperor's crown in the world.

The war faction hoped to get an ally that had just gone to war with Russia not long ago. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The peace faction hoped to expand trade with China and fill the French economy after the Mississippi bubble burst.

However, Dupleix was not optimistic about the prospect of the French king's special envoy going to Beijing this time.

From the news revealed by the count before, it seems that this time he hopes to send people to Jingdezhen to learn the technology of burning paper and porcelain, allow some tea seeds to be taken away, and learn silk weaving technology.

This made Dupleix have to wonder if the king and the ministers in the court had broken their brains.

Judging from his previous experience dealing with Liu Yu, the officials of Dashun were not fools. How could they allow the outflow of the three most profitable trade technologies, porcelain, silk and tea?

Judging from the experience dealing with Liu Yu, Dashun is most interested in various technologies now.

However, if these technologies are not bought from France, they can be bought from other countries. They are willing to pay silver and gold, and they are not short of gold and silver.

Naturally, they will not sell the hens that lay eggs, and Dashun is not short of eggs.

As for expanding trade, Dupleix, who presided over trade in India, thought it was a pure dream.

France has nothing to sell to Dashun. Most of the cargo ships that go to Guangdong every year are silver. In the past few years, the relationship with Liu Yu has been good, and the woolen cloth, asphalt, canvas, cables, etc. needed for the construction of the navy have been handed over to France as a diplomatic olive branch, and finally more goods can be sold every year. But that's it.

China's handicraft industry is too developed. Many things can be imitated by Dashun in a short time. Even for things like clocks, there are many people in Guangdong who can make them, although the quality is still a little worse.

Instead of thinking about how to expand trade with China in diplomacy, it is better to consider it more realistically and plant more American ginseng in the North American colonies... that thing is still very easy to sell.

Tariffs are already very low, and Dashun has no trade protection policies. If you can't sell it, you can't sell it. This is not something that can be solved by diplomacy.

Or, you should consider the Sino-French alliance and drag China into the war in Europe. Even if you encourage and instigate Dashun to go to war with the Netherlands, it will be beneficial to France.

Even if it is a high-profile alliance, it will shock Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and other countries. Dupleix feels that none of the idiots in Paris understand China, nor do they understand trade. They don't even understand that the root cause of the trade deficit is that France has no goods to sell, not that China has any trade protection policies.

No European country has tariffs as low as Guangdong and Fujian. Compared with the 125% tea tax in Britain and the luxury tax on silk fabrics in France, Dashun is simply a model of free trade.

However, Dupleix didn't know what Count Maurepas wanted to talk about this time, and what diplomatic deal France hoped to reach. He could only complain and remind Count Maurepas not to have unrealistic fantasies.

"My Lord, France's interests in Asia should focus on India. Rich India can not only trade, but also rule India and collect taxes. Our handicraft industry has no advantages over Asia, whether it is India or China."

"And forming an alliance with China will only benefit us and not harm us. China is surrounded by rich Japan, and the Netherlands, Britain, and Spain in the south. With Malacca as the boundary, France's India and China's Southeast Asia are the most beneficial to us."

"As for trade... I suggest you go to Guangdong or Fujian to see their towns and their silk and cotton textile industries. If you can stay in Jiangsu, you may have a more intuitive understanding of what it means that the Celestial Empire has everything."